As our recent post on anti-Greta Naomi Seibt’s anti-Semitism and anti-feminism demonstrated, the forces of climate denial are making common cause with the patriarchy and white supremacy as part of the larger cultural battle to preserve white male dominance.
We didn’t make it explicit then, so we will now: this is why intersectionality is so important. Fighting for climate action should go hand in hand with fighting for gender equity, or immigrant rights, or racial justice. While scientists and climate activists might feel like they’re stepping outside their lane by joining up with other social justice activists, the opposition has already bound these issues together and uses it to their political advantage
The case of Oregon’s GOP fleeing the legislature over the past weeks provides a perfect example. At Vox, Dave Roberts explained last week how “a handful of white people from the far right are holding the state hostage,” explaining the history of the GOP’s protest walk-outs to prevent climate policy from getting a vote.
The coalition supporting the climate bill is a broad and diverse majority, but those who oppose it are overwhelmingly white. The fact that a democratically elected majority can’t enact the will of its constituents, Roberts explains, “only makes sense in the context of white supremacy: the notion that rural white Americans are more authentically American than other groups and deserve outsized representation in its politics and veto power over legislation.”
Roberts continued by highlighting the connection between Oregon’s GOP and a supposedly grassroots group that’s been vocally supporting the walk-out, a group called Timber Unity, who have been propped up as the popular pushback to the climate bill. But at rallies and online, Timber Unity is making common cause with fringe groups, like the Q-Anon conspiracy theorists and III%ers militia –a group created in the wake of President Obama’s election with a membership of heavily armed, predominantly white men.
For more specifics, we turn to MotherJones, where Rebecca Leber and Ali Breland published a piece last week focused on Timber Unity’s ties to “neofascist and militia organizations,” its funding from the CEO of a lumber company, and a private Facebook group it runs.
From racial slurs about the NAACP to lamenting that Muslims are running for office to casual threats of violence against the governor and protestors demanding climate action, it’s clear that the page is “awash with violent threats, conspiracy theories, and sometimes racist messages that likely violate the platform’s terms of service.” Photos from a local GOP event and Timber Unity rally suggest that the group is friendly with violent extremists.
Unfortunately, what happens online doesn’t stay online. Local activists who support Oregon’s climate bill are now seriously concerned about the potential for violence.
Which brings us back to intersectionality. The climate community needs to stand steadfast against racism and misogyny and champion social justice. If not for the obvious moral reasoning that it’s basic human decency to protect one another from hatred and bigotry, then because the failure to do so gives an advantage to those using racism to fight against climate action.
If the enemy is building a coalition of racist, misogynist, well-funded, heavily-armed and hateful deniers, it’s going to take a broad, diverse and loving coalition to overcome them.
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